


Again

by Losille



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losille/pseuds/Losille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom goes to a wedding in a last ditch attempt to convince the woman he loves that he is a changed man.  </p>
<p>Written for the <a href="http://thfrustration.tumblr.com/">THFrustration Prompt Challenge</a> on Tumblr.</p>
<p>Unfilled prompt #482.  Music prompt: “Again” by Scott Alan featuring Hadley Fraser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Again

**Author's Note:**

> Hadley Fraser singing "Again" live - [Youtube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iifFLCX9MEI)
> 
> Studio recording w/ lyrics only - [Youtube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQcbxIeClgQ)

I stepped into the old Catholic church and blew a heaving sigh from my body, struggling to find the courage I needed to face my next great struggle. 

I often passed by this church on my way about town; I’d admired its quaintness from the modest but intricate stone spires reaching toward the sky down to the bells that rang out for special occasions and the pleasant little rose garden that surrounded it.  But I’d never stepped inside.

My family had never been religious growing up, so there never seemed to be any need to go inside and depress myself with the images of saints and demons and a man hung on a cross.  The thought of religion and Christian teachings seemed so macabre to me, this praying to a man in pain.  And though the man in question stood for many great teachings, I just couldn’t get my academic mind to wrap around the mysteries of “Christ’s love” and all that.  Frankly, it sort of freaked me out.

But I sure as hell could have used a prayer or two for the task I had before me; I hoped whatever grace would find me by setting foot in this church would come swiftly on this special day.  After all, today was the day that my very heart could be wrenched from my body.  That was, of course, if the plea I intended to make fell on deaf ears.

I stood at the foot of the Virgin’s statue as she looked down at me with her loving, but silently judging, eyes.  She knew what I planned to do here.  That I could be ruining the happiness of two people—not just one—in a matter of minutes.  And they weren’t just any people.  Both of those in question where my friends. 

Unable to withstand her scrutiny much longer, I drifted away and pulled at the restrictive, starched collar and necktie of my fancy suit.  I moved further into the vestibule where the flurry of activity had centered.  People, young and old and in between, ran about in their best pastel formal clothes and fascinators.  They laughed and talked and made so much noise in the hollow space that I could scarcely hear myself think, which was probably for the better.  How could they be so happy on a day like today?  It was grey and raining outside, and the storm within me refused to cease.

“Oh, Tom!  There you are!” called a familiar voice from within the cacophony of sound.

I blinked hard and glanced around, finding the voice’s owner in his grey morning suit coming toward me. “Hello, Henry!”

The older man, with more white hair coming out of his ears than grew from his mostly-bald head, slapped me on the back and gave a jolly laugh.  I coughed into my hand at the shock of this contact.  “Where have you been, old chap?  She’s been running around mad because her Man of Honor isn’t here.”

“I was distinctly told not to worry about being around to get her dressed,” I remarked. “Because, as I quote, I ‘wouldn’t know my own arsehole from a hole in the ground’.”

Henry laughed. “I’m sure you know a thing or two about dressing, at least, eh?  Well, at least undressing.  I hear you have another young lady on your arm.  Did you bring her?  I’m sure she’s lovely.”

I shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the formal coat on my shoulders.  Henry had become a second father to me from the moment we’d been introduced twenty-odd years ago, but the man was loud and brash and so very hard to like at times.  Couldn’t they all tell how I felt about this situation?  Couldn’t they see the despair in my eyes?  The pain every time I had to endure watching my best friend kiss her lover?  The very reason why I’d had so many one night stands and short-lived flames of late was because I thought I could find her in them.

Each morning I woke up with a new woman beside me, I realized I would never find her. There was only one _she._

“No, I’m not seeing anyone,” I replied.

“Oh, well, too bad,” Henry said. “There are plenty of single ladies here… perhaps you’ll find someone.  There’s still a chance for you to be a part of the family!”

I coughed again and tugged at my tie.  I just had to get this thing off of me.

After a drawn out, awkward silence, and a suitable time in companionship with the man, I cleared my throat and looked down at him. “So, where is she?”

“Back in the dressing room,” he said. “Let me take you.”

I nodded and followed the heavyset father through the vestibule to the left, down a long, dim corridor to a door on the end.  It wasn’t open but a crack, but I could hear her laugh with her bridesmaids and other female family members.  My heart skittered and flopped along with my stomach.

It was a mistake.  It had to be.  I had to be mad to even think about doing this.  How could I ruin the happiest day of my best friend’s life just because I had to get these things in my head and my heart out in the open?

Henry pushed open the door and dragged me in behind him, making the inhabitants of the room turn around to look at the intruders.  She stood in front of a large ovular mirror and the image of her reflected back at me sucked all the air from my body.  Stinging, hot tears battered the backs of my eyes for release.  I swallowed them.  I wouldn’t cry.  I had to stay strong.

She looked radiant there, smiling and laughing, her dark hair swept up in curls and jeweled pins.  A few tendrils framed her delicate, porcelain face.  Fine boned hands fell from their position playing with the crystal encrusted straps of the luxurious gown hugging her body.  She turned to look at me.

“Oh, thank god, you’re here!” she exclaimed.  She turned with some effort, kicking the long train out behind her as she did. “So?  What do you think?”

She held out her hands, allowing me a full view of the gown.  Of her.  I remembered when we were kids, me just a boy of thirteen when she was ten.  Our families had gotten together for a summer retreat in the country, and it was decided that we would hold a talent show.  She’d commandeered me into being Prince Charming to her Cinderella.  My sisters had been the evil stepsisters, and my mum had been her step-mother.  I’d played along, excited to be acting, but awkward and ungainly in my movements and craft.  Her costume had been an old wedding gown, yellowed and dingy due to disuse and age, from a trunk of costumes in her parents’ attic.  I remembered standing at the fake altar as my sister—then the pastor—married us.  Even though I didn’t notice it then, she’d adored me with those big chocolate eyes of hers.

Those eyes that had matured so much and that were now watching me very closely.  Searching for something.

“Tom?” she asked, her voice quiet.  A squeak. “Is it okay?  Don’t you like it?”

My throat felt like sandpaper. “Of course I do.  You look beautiful, as always.  Like Cinderella.”

Full, red lips stretched wide. “Really?”

I nodded and stepped forward, reaching out for her hands.  She slipped them into mine; cold smooth digits curled around my fingers and held securely. “You’re absolutely radiant.  He’s a lucky guy.”

A chorus of feminine approval flooded the room.  I glanced at all of them and tried to smile, but it was difficult.  Her hands squeezed mine and I looked back at her, losing myself in the beauty of her eyes.  In all her beauty.

Her eyes were questioning.  _What’s wrong?_ they asked.

I felt ill and shifted my line of sight to her chin.  I couldn’t allow her to see it.

She sighed. “Guys, can you leave us for a bit?  I’ve got to talk to my main man for a minute.”

Main man?  I wasn’t her main man.  That was the attractive man running around outside, jubilant and excited to be—in a very short amount of time—marrying the brightest jewel this world had to offer. 

I still remembered the night that she had slipped away me like it was yesterday.  We’d just finished our run of _Coriolanus_ ; she had called me the night before to say that she would be flying in from South Africa in time to catch our last performance.  I’d been utterly excited to see her; she’d been gone for ages on yet another one of her Doctors Without Borders missions.  But that wasn’t any different than it’d been after she’d left medical school.  Our lives and careers had taken us in separate directions to the far reaches of the globe, but we still tried to make time to see each other on a somewhat regular basis.

I’d been on a performance high that night—critics and fans alike raved about the play. I’d developed close bonds with my costars and the end of the run was bittersweet for all of us.  However, the only person I had wanted to celebrate with was my darling friend.

When she’d popped up backstage afterwards, I’d frozen in my spot.  She’d looked as radiant then as she did in a wedding gown.  Perhaps even more so.  It was then that I’d realized I was in love with her.  That I always had been.  But before I could even move from my momentary love-sick stupor to greet her, _he’d_ been there to welcome her backstage.  He had her laughing in a matter of minutes.  And then he’d sung to her in the course of the night, albeit drunkenly at the cast party karaoke contest, and won her over completely.

Nothing I could have done would have ever won her back.

Why did I think anything would change now?

She held onto me tightly as the room cleared and the door shut with a resounding thud.  When we were finally alone, she stepped back, her brown eyes sparkling, but full of worry. “What’s wrong?”

I pulled away from her and pressed my lips together to keep a cry of anguish from escaping them.  I had to get through this.  I had to tell her what I meant to and then I intended to leave.  I wouldn’t survive actually watching her go through with this.  Watching her leaving me… again.

“Tom…” her soft voice was beside my ear, a comforting hand resting on my back. “Tom… please… what’s wrong?”

I turned to her.  _Now or never, Hiddleston_. “I love you.”

She laughed and patted my shoulder as a fond friend would in the situation. “I know you do, silly.  I love you, too.”

I swallowed as she walked away from me back to the mirror where she began fiddling with her dress.  Long moments of silence passed.  Water-filled vases and bouquets of fresh cut flowers lined a small side table that I leaned on for support.  I could smell their strong perfume.  It almost made me gag.

“No,” I finally said to the quiet room. “No, darling!  I _love_ you.”

The electricity in the air zapped and changed in an instant.  The sounds of her rustling wedding dressed ceased as she froze in her spot.  Slowly—glacially—she turned around and fixed me with a glazed expression of disbelief.

“W-what?” she asked. “What did you just say to me?”

“I love you,” I replied. “I’ve always loved you.”

Her face fell.  She worried her lower lip with her teeth.  We stood like this, staring at each other for some time, me not knowing how to continue and her not willing to open her mouth.  But why?  She’d never had any trouble telling me what she thought before.  I shoved my hands in the pockets of my dress trousers.  They silence was deafening.

“Please say something,” I pleaded. “Anything.”

She went from pensive to angry at the drop of a hat. “Seriously?! Here?  Now?! You chose right now, _on my wedding day_ to—!”

“I know, it’s not the right place or time, but I couldn’t…”

“You couldn’t what?”  I’d never seen her so livid.

“I couldn’t… _not_ tell you.”

She closed her eyes and shuddered. “Tom… no!  No!  Do you know how long— how long I’ve loved you?  How long I waited for you to _see_ me until I finally gave up?”

“I was an idiot.”

“A _fucking_ idiot,” she said.

Flinching at her harsh language—she so rarely used such vernacular unless it was absolutely warranted—I swallowed my feelings. “Look, I know it’s not perfect.  Or even right.  I know you love him.  I guess I just needed to make a good confession to you.  To tell you that I love you, and I don’t think I will ever not love you.  I regret not doing anything…”

“I know you’re not into the whole churchy thing.”  The fury sparked off of her. “But you should have confessed it to a priest.  I didn’t need to hear it.”

Her words were like a thousand tiny daggers in my chest.

“But I don’t love him,” I said feebly. “I love you.”

She offered me an exasperated sigh that turned, ever so suddenly, into a wrenching sob. “Tom…”

I couldn’t keep my own tears back at her sudden outpouring of emotion.  Hot saltiness blinded my eyes and slipped down my cheeks.  There was no trying to be manly now.  All I could do was crumble under the release of pressure at finally confessing and the unbearable weight of her rejection.

“If I could go back to that night, I would have never let him monopolize you,” I said. “If I could turn back time, none of this would have happened.  I would have told you how I felt.  I would have held you and never let you go.”

“It’s too late,” she said, her voice wavering. “All these people… all this planning… _he’s_ out there, Tom.  He’s waiting for me.  And I love him.”

“More than you do me?”

Honestly, I don’t even know why I asked it.  Did I even want an answer?  It would hurt just the same if she did say she loved me more and still chose to marry him.  But how I could even formulate such a question?  Of course she did love him more.  That’s why she’d agreed to marry him.

Her silence, however, made me hope.  Hope was a dangerous thing.

“Well? Do you?” I questioned again.  Reaching for her, I grabbed her hands again. “Please tell me.”

“I love you both,” she murmured. “I can’t… I don’t… Jesus, Tom!  Why the fuck did you do this now?”

She pulled from my grasp so suddenly, I wobbled and dropped to my knees. “I’m here begging you for a second chance.”

“You’ve had millions of chances to tell me,” she said. “You chose your career over us every single one of those times.  Or you simply just didn’t do _anything_ like that night I met him at the show.  What could prove to me, _now_ , that this time is going to be any different?  What could prove to me that you would love me as much as him?”

I held my hands out. “I have nothing.  No way to prove anything.  All I can give you is my word.  No, my promise!, that I’ll be a better man.”

“No,” she said firmly, scrubbing her face with her hands to rid herself of her tears.  She’d wrecked her makeup.  Big black mascara streaks tracked down her face through the foundation on her skin. “I’m not doing this.  He’s a good man, Tom.  A great man, even.  Maybe even better than you.  My family loves him.  He’s never made a choice without taking _me_ into consideration.  And you… you just use me for a time and go on your merry way until you need me again.  You’re fucking selfish.  Waiting till today, of all days, just proves it.”

“Please don’t say that,” I cried. “If you left with me, today, things would be different.”

“We just don’t know that,” she said. “Our past does _not_ work in your favor.”

“Please.” I practically groveled at her feet.  My voice was weak as I pled with her for forgiveness and for her love.  To me, it was a matter of life or death.  She held my heart in her hands and she was squeezing it.  Stabbing it.  Pretty soon, she’d rip it from my chest completely. “Please don’t marry him.  Leave him a note or something and come with me.”

She stared at me for a long time; I could feel the weight of her decision, perhaps much less than she did, but I tried to will her into accepting.  It was my last chance.  My only chance.

In her voluminous skirts, she knelt down carefully in front of me so that we were eye-to-eye.  She took my hands in hers again and kissed them before holding my gaze. “Thomas, I will always love you, but I can’t leave him like this.  I don’t know if I _want_ to leave him.”

“But you’re my other half,” I said. “We have two decades of friendship and love.  You’ve only known him for two years!”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.  I can’t.”

I pulled my hands from her and rocked up onto my legs.  With the heels of my hands, I brushed at the ugly tears that wet my face and struggled to stop any more falling. “I don’t know why I tried to convince you otherwise.  You were always the practical one.”

“And you were always the dreamer,” she said softly.

“It’s one of my worst afflictions,” I sad bitingly.

She sagged back onto her rear, looking up at me forlornly. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said though I was breaking.  My father would knock me on the chin and tell me to buck up and be a man.  So I did.  I repositioned the coat on my shoulders and willed those tears away from my eyes.  I refused to walk out sobbing.  I refused to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me like this.  Least of all my sisters and mother who were due to be arriving any minute to the festivities. “I’ll get over it.”

She sucked in a breath of air and sniffled.

I screwed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the sounds. “I have to go.”

Without waiting for her, I pushed out the door.  Her hangers-on for the day were all milling about in the dim corridor.  They saw me.  And I knew they knew.  Somehow they could see it written all over my face.  Maybe I had bloodshot eyes.  But, blessedly, no one tried to stop me as I pushed through them.  No one said anything.  They just stood there with their mouths hanging open.

I made my escape out of the vestibule, fighting against the current of new arrivals.  There were so many people here.  So many people who had come to share in two peoples’ perfect love for each other.  To celebrate.  It positively smothered me.

I finally stepped out into the drizzly day and broke into a jog through the church’s extensive grounds.  Making a hard right, I went to the car park to find my car.  I slipped inside, drenched to the bone, hair and clothing plastered to my skin.  I shook as I cried, gripping the steering wheel to hold me steady.

“What are you doing?” I asked myself. “Why are you crying?  It’s over.  You said what you had to.  You’re done.”

I had no right to cry.  It was _my_ fault any of this happened.  If I hadn’t been so pigheaded.  So stupid, I would have—.

My door opened wide and I turned to find a pouf of white now looking somewhat flat with the heaviness of the rain falling on it.  My heart skipped a beat when fine boned hands reached in and pulled me out of the car slightly by the lapels of my coat.  Her face was there… and her lips were there greeting me.  She kissed me so fully, and so unexpectedly, I couldn’t breathe.  Those amazing lips I’d fantasized about were so full and soft and tasted of peppermint candy.  My heart sang.  My pulse quickened,  I needed more of her.

I thought, just for a minute, my hope hadn’t been in vain.

She released me just before I could bury my hands in her hair and kiss her back.  With a breath, she placed a chaste kiss on my wet forehead. “I love you, Tom Hiddleston.  But I have to go.”

“I know,” I said through the thick emotion in my throat. “I know.”

She nodded her head and sighed.  With one more glance, she turned on her heels and ran back for the church, skirts in her hands.  I watched her until she disappeared…

_Again._


End file.
